Saturday, December 13, 2008

[caption id="attachment_209" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Not quite bionic, but he may play guitar again"][/caption]

I don't think it's quite the "bionic hand" of the telegraph headline, but it's an interesting story: The young guitarist of the popular indie rock group The Long Blondes suffered a stroke and can no longer move his right arm. Now, with the help of some new technology he may play guitar again.

My understanding is that the supposed bionic hand, called the SaeboFlex, provides support for the hand so that less effort is required while the patient is relearning to move their body. A real "bionic hand" would do actual work, and while they do make those, it's not for stoke victims, it for people who loose their hands.

After a stroke, a portion of the brain is literally dead, and the only treatment currently available is to get other parts of the brain to compensate. This is a slow and often very frustrating process for patients, because it involves being told to move their arm (or whatever is paralyzed). On the first day, they absolutely cannot do this, and they may find the whole thing preposterous, and want to give up right then and there. Day-by-day and week-by-week, however, they learn to move their arm again. Often the therapist has to employ tricks, such as restraining their other arm, because it's so tempting for the patient to just use the other arm when asked to do tasks, because the other arm works. Rarely do they recover full use, but scientists are starting to appreciate the full extent of the brain's "plasticity", that is, it's ability to reconfigure and repurpose itself, and they have ever increasing hope for future techniques.

New techniques include all sorts of stuff beyond what would seem like therapeutic exercise, although these are improving as well. I worked in a lab that researched the effects of rTMS which was a technique that uses powerful electromagnets to induce electric currents inside the brain at repeated intervals. This seems to encourage the brain to be more "plastic" for some reason. Research into TMS (the non-repeated version) and rTMS was originally expected to be revolutionary, but has turned out to just be very useful, although I'm unaware if anyone's actually using it in hospitals.

It's foolish even to worry about hotel safety, because the chances of something happening on any particular night in any particular hotel are vanishingly small. The taxi ride to the hotel is invariably more dangerous than the hotel itself.

Nevertheless he gives advice. For example, how about placing some dental floss over that laptop to find out if someone's been tampering? Sure, that's not in every spy movie. And what have you accomplished? You just found out someone stole your data, and it's too late to do anything about it. Better advice is to secure your data using readily available software or put important data on a thumb drive and bring the thumb drive with you. Okay, says Goldberg, why not block the door with a desk in case you believe that men are roaming the floors with automatic weapons? Sure, that seems... uh... reasonable (in certain parts of the world), but Golberg himself says "This is dangerous, of course, in the event of fire." Yeah, and guess which one is more likely (hint, read the above quote, and keep in mind that a terrorist BOMBING might involve fire). Goldberg's solution of filling the bathtub with water won't help with what is often considered a larger problem in fires: smoke.

Of course, some of his more common-sense ideas are reasonable: know where your stuff is in case you have to leave quickly, while others seem like they're placed there just to sound contrary and intelligent: "Stay in hotels that have already been bombed or otherwise attacked. Mumbai is a fairly safe place for travelers right now."

A note about the books titled Jihad: I wouldn't stop you either. Most Muslims understand the term quite differently than we understand it here in the west. Jihad means struggle, often interpreted as a struggle to improve ones self or society. It appears frequently in the Qur'an, and, not being a racist I'd be happy to let you through on that one. But, yea, they should take your knives away, not the crap from Colbert.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignright" width="158" caption="Adorable behavior such as this may be a sign of something more sinister!"][/caption]

If your cat is using alcohol and drugs, it's a good bet they're doing everything possible to keep that activity hidden. The last thing they want is for their owners to give them a "hassle" about his newly-found "entertainment." But continued alcohol and drug use will affect your cat's behavior, attitudes and even choice of friends.

Here are some signs to look for, if you think that your cat may be using:

Mood Swings

Most cats go through normal mood swings. But look for extreme changes -- one minute happy and giddy followed by withdrawal, or fits of clawing at the furniture more than usual. Is your cat both aloof and prone to acting out? These are possible signs of drug and alcohol abuse.

New Friends?

If you cat is using, chances are they will begin hanging out with other cats with similar interests. Has your cat suddenly turned away from their old friends? Are they hanging out with an older (driving age) group or with those that you suspect are using drugs?

Physical Health

Have you noticed a change in appetite? Is your cat extremely finicky about the food they eat? Does your your cat have strange or inexplicable sleeping patterns?

Has your cat suddenly developed a complete disregard for others? Does your cat get in your way or have a "bad attitude"? Is your cat evasive or troublesome, perhaps hiding when they know they've done something bad?

Little Things

Have you noticed a change in hairstyle or "fashion" choices? Are they suddenly using breath mints consistently? Is your cat suddenly very secretive?

Overt Signals

Has anyone ever told you your cat is drinking or using drugs? Do you know that they have "experimented." Have they suddenly developed the need for additional money, for vague or unexplained reasons? Have you ever seen them stagger? Or have you noticed any slurred speech? Changes in the pupils of their eyes, or redness or bloodshot eyes?

Again, many of these changes could be attributed to normal cat behavior. But if you have noticed a pattern of several of these "signals" your cat may be using alcohol or drugs.

Friday, October 3, 2008

While everyone else is obsessed with the idea of teens getting it on (OMG! Teenagers having Sex! Can it be?) I couldn't help but notice something else about the show based on a school affiliated my own snotty-a#$@ed childhood alma-matter, so I wrote my own wiki entry...

Gossip Girl (TV Series)

In addition to lots of hot white characters, Gossip Girl also features a hot non-white character who plays Dan's BFF. (She even looks less white in other pictures!) If you believe she grew up in a scary part of Brooklyn, I'll sell you a bridge to that borough.

Gossip Girl is an American television teen drama based on the popular novel series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar. Gossip Girl revolves around the lives of socialite young adults growing up on New York's least exciting neighborhood, the Upper East Side. The characters attend elite academic institutions while dealing with sex, drugs, jealousy, and other issues faced by today's rich white kids (oh, right, and Dan's BFF, what's-her-name1. She has to deal with pretending not to fit in, despite being from scary Brooklyn). Issues not addressed in detail include: depression, college admission, school work, money, medical problems, emotional problems, etc. (fortunately, that TV unfriendly stuff doesn't happen to these kids, even, surprisingly, anorexia).

Despite the appearance of non-wasp characters a non-wasp character, the audience is able to fantasize themselves into an all-white world (just like Groton's founder Endicott Peabody dreamed of, too!) because that character at least has blue eyes and is really hot and has a "normal" job working in a cafe (off-camera she's a model).

Apparently, the writers attended New York City private schools either in 1947, or in the South, because several of the episodes depict things like coming out cotillions (I know the characters are too old for bar/bat mitzvahs, but cotillions? WTF? How about the Gold and Silver Ball next season?).2

Anyway relax, this show is totally race-sanitized: no major Asian characters or Black characters (unless they have blue eyes, exotic sounding names and can pass for children of characters from the '90's hit show Friends), and definitely no Jews. Not the Upper East Side I remember from my high school days, but it's definitely the Upper East Side many of my friends' parents probably dreamed about. It's sort of like a eugenics project, only it's not real, so you can feel good about that, too, because some of those schools really are eugenics projects and that's more than a little creepy.

Criticism

The show's critics allege that the show raises some adult themes. What exactly constitutes an adult theme? According to Bill Waterson, it's things like doing paperwork, filing, etc. Indeed, the show has that: Nate becomes involved in the family business and so on, so I advise parents caution when allowing their children to watch this show.

Season 2

Rumor has it that more adult themes are in store next season. Perhaps they'll be doing taxes, or learning right from wrong or even drinking adult drinks like cosmos? Perhaps the smarter ones will grow up properly and turn into chicktellectuals.

Discussion Questions

Wasn't there an Asian chick with no lines in the pilot?

What's more boring, a blog about a TV show or a TV show about a blog?

If you were going to have a bitchy argument synchronized to a song, which song would it be?

In what way is Jessica Szohr's character not white?3

Notes

1 It's hard to remember the character's name when she's missing from more episodes than any other character. I wonder why that is.2 Okay, truth be told, there were a few cotillions, but nobody got excited about them except the young ladies' mothers.3 We're looking for either everyone talks about how great she is in order to feel accepting of her, or she provides advice and, you might say, spiritual guidance the real other characters.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A new study commissioned by Sheraton hotels in honor of Global Out of Office Day (which should clearly be renamed) found that although most people feel that technology gives them more quality time and flexibility with family and friends (84%) and 77% say their PDA helps them enjoy life more, A whopping 87% of professionals bring their PDA into the bedroom, and in what may or may not be a related finding, more than one-third of folks surveyed (35%) say if forced to choose, they'd pick their PDA over their spouse. While some might say that says a lot about the state of so-called crackberry syndrome, I say dump your spouse already -- there's no love there.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Here's a cool ad campaign that also raises awareness of ambient noise. It's designed to to promote AEG-Electrolux's new line of quiet laundry appliances. Their billboards, such as the one pictured, can be seen across western Europe in several major cities (London, Berlin, Brussels, Milan, and Madrid):

They also have a blog supposedly dedicated to noise awareness with headlines like "School kids and night club owners join forces against noise pollution", when, in fact, no such thing has happened. School kids shouted at their billboards to see if they could make it jump, and a nightclub owner took pictures of the billboard near his nightclub as proof that his club isn't that loud at night. I fail to see this as constituting "joining forces", or even working against noise pollution, really, so I won't link that blog.

Another annoyance: their website asks "Did you know that an increase of just three decibels doubles the intensity of the noise?" While technically correct, this question misleads most of their readers because, outside of a technical context, it suggests to many people that a change of 3 dB will sound like a doubling in loundness, which it won't. Psychoacoustic research tells us that a change from 6 to 10 dB sounds like a doubling1. But I guess that doesn't sell as many washing machines.

Finally, while it's cool that you can view the current noise intensities of three of the major cities online (with histories!) It's a shame that the dB Meters seem to max out at 95 dB, which is only 5 dB above the range of volume levels given for a major road, according to wikipedia, and much quieter than, say, thunder, so you couldn't use this to get an accurate account of actual average noise levels over time -- at least not of this spot in Berlin:

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Here's a video I made this weekend for a friend of mine by asking total strangers to wish him a happy birthday:

I couldn't believe how easy it was to get 30 people (or so) from the Sweetwater 420 fest to do this. I think the key in getting people to participate was going up to people who were not otherwise occupied, and who didn't look like they might be easily put off (like they were waiting in line or otherwise potentially annoyed by something) and explaining it quickly. Having the video camera in hand was helpful because they knew immediately I was going to ask them to be on camera, and that's were I was going with it. I also had my wife by my side and I think it's easier when you have a pair of people, especially a man and a woman.

My only regret was not having a decent mike attached to the camera, but I wonder if a more professional looking setup would have intimidated people. My tiny handheld and very amateurish looking camera may have helped make people more comfortable with the whole thing.

The gag at the end is a little silly, but it gave me an opportunity I was looking for.

Anyway, hope the video is interesting to folks who don't know either of us!

Monday, March 24, 2008

In Part II of my series on Stage Plot input lists I got a few of my facts wrong. Not about input lists, but about the band I picked on, Kansas City Funk Syndicate. It wasn't because David Freeland, who had originally contacted me with some excellent questions about his band's input, was unclear, it was just that so much time had passed between asking his questions and me actually blogging about them. I forgot some important facts and got confused, so here are some clarifications.

One thing I wrote was that Funk Syndicate should buy a new mixer. This would have been good advice had my version of reality been the right one. David clarified that their mixer can reorder inputs -- the reason their input list seemed "out of order" was because of "ergonomics on the [mixer] and the money channels since some of our preamps are better than others at the moment. A lot of the channel moving is all of the relabeling more that the capabilities of the mixer." In short, they could have changed the channel order but it takes time to relabel their mixer and their outboard gear. (I am also guessing that by ergonomics they mean that they wanted the important stuff on one "page" of their mixer, which only has 16 physical faders, but at least 32 physical inputs). Makes perfect sense.

Still, it presents a problem for the FoH mixer who isn't used to finding most vocals at one end of the mix and one lonely vocal at the other. Confound that with something that I am guessing happened: Funk Syndicate sent their stage plot and Input List to the venue explained everything, including their unusual input list, the venue said it would be no problem, but failed to communicate it to the mix engineer in advance and the mix engineer got caught by surprise but Funk Syndicate thought he knew what the deal was going to be. I'm just guessing, but that kind of thing happens all the time.

I don't have a great solution to the issue without actually seeing the whole rig, and knowing all the concerns, but here's what I suggested to David:

If it were me, the first thing I would consider would be simplifying the rig -- sometimes less is more. Personally, I have never heard the difference between high quality and very high quality preamps in a live situation, but you guys might be hearing it -- especially with in-ears, or if the preamps are actually full channel strips or you've got other outboard. Or just give in and lose a little of that on your money channels. Labeling can also be an issue. You could try two colors of sharpie (one for each setup).

I don't know if this is workable -- every band is different and sometimes it can be difficult, emotionally, to have spent a hard-earned cash on high-end gear and not use it because it doesn't fit ergonomically into the rig. Something else to consider might be to give your venue two input list options, and let them choose. This could backfire because you are giving them choices they are not used to, so you'd have to find a concise way to explain the difference. You'd also want to be able to switch between them easily, preferably on site because the odds of the venue actually passing the question on to the FoH engineer and getting back to you with his or her answer is small.

* * *

Well, David has a tricky situation, no doubt, and I'm not sure I've done much to solve the problem because there is no easy answer. If you find yourself in a similar situation, remember to be as communicative, open and clear as you can be and remember to anticipate problems and be ready for them. A weird input list is one potential problem, so if you have a good reason for not following the usual rules, make sure to communicate those reasons, and, if you can, have a backup plan!

Monday, March 17, 2008

In part I of this post, I covered the basics of input lists. I noted in that article that most people don't need to worry too much about the actual numbers they assign to their inputs in their input lists (aka the channel numbers), because most engineers won't pay them much attention. I recently got an email from David Freeland of the Kansas City Funk Syndicate who had a question about the channel numbers on his input lists, and I'll address that in this posting, but many readers may simply want to read part I, since channel numbers are not relevant to most bands.

NOTE: while this post still stands on it's own, it turns out I got some facts wrong about KC Funk Syndicate. For corrections, see Input Lists (Corrections)

Why your channel numbers generally don't matter

In general, you might think it would be easy for a mix engineer to adhere to your request for channel numbers. In reality, different mixer configurations and the desire to have continuity between sets (especially at festivals) makes this difficult. For example, a typical small format mixer looks like this:

but most large format live consoles don't look like that, because there are too many channels and you want the important stuff (the mains and the busses) in the middle where you have the best access to them. So, large format live consoles look like this:

The upshot is that building from left to right (which is how you setup your input list) is not the only, obvious way to go. On the big mixer pictured above, for example, I might put my lead instruments and auxes on the first 24 channels (which are to the left of the main section), and the drums, bass, and other rhythm instruments on the next 24 channels, which are on channels 25-48, which wouldn't make any sense at all except to someone who was looking at the same mixer. Another way to go might be to alternate bands on the left and right sides of the mixer, which might seem strange, but I heard of one festival which had a rotating stage, and they might want to do that to swap out bands faster -- especially if they had two engineers sharing the same console!

Don't even think about trying to organize your input list in anticipation of this, though, because you won't know where the split on the mixer occurs, how your engineer likes to split things up, or what the other acts will be. Even if you did, your input list would cease to be a logically grouped, organized reminder of the important sound sources of your band, which is the whole point of the input list.

KC Funk Syndicate's Stage Plot

The first thing you'll notice, aside from the fact that they've got a very large band, with a very well organized stage plot is that their input list is out of order. Their vocalists are at the top (good!), except for one, Karl, who is close to the bottom (bad!). There's also some channels that are not strictly inputs, but rather talkback channels and so on (confusing!).

I asked David about this and he explained that they really wanted the channel numbers assigned to the numbers he gave them because they were supplying their own monitor system and engineer, and the venue (a large casino) was supplying FoH system and engineer. Now, I'm sure the FoH engineer asked, as I did, why the channel order had to be that way. Couldn't the monitor engineer use a more sensible channel order? Apparently, the answer is no, because the monitor engineer was using a pre-programmed digital mixer who's tracks could not be reordered. That stray vocalist had been added to their act recently, and so had to be added to the end because the digital mixer was incapable of reordering their the tracks into a more sane order!

I don't know how much of the venue's irritation stemmed from not being able to call the shots (FoH engineers usually call the shots on things like channel numbers), and how much stemmed from actual confusion about having the vocals being separate, but David told me the venue was definitely upset.

Given this limitation, David did the right thing presenting an input list with the channel numbers assigned in order, and he was able to communicate the situation very clearly to me, so I presume he did so with the venue as well. That said, I agree with the venue, that David should consider other options in the future.

What's the Solution?

Since David upset the venue, he did some research, came across some of my previous posts on stage plots and asked for my advice. Before I get to that, I should say that if Funk Syndicate were the only band on the bill, and the FoH engineer was advised of the situation in advance and they had plenty of setup time, the FoH engineer should have been able to deal with the unusual setup. It's not ideal, but it's hardly an impossible situation and it's all clearly documented. Oddities like this are life sometimes, and David is clearly open to suggestions. I don't know if the FoH engineer was being a jerk or simply making a recommendation that they change their setup -- all David said was that the venue, "gave him some grief." I hope it was the latter.

Clearly, the ideal situation for Funk Syndicate would be to ditch the mixer that can't cope with changing channels. Seriously, I love digital gear, but it has to suit your purpose, and in this case, the centerpiece of a live setup is so inflexible that it can't be made to play well with other gear, so it should be dumped. I realize it was a big investment, and Funk Syndicate may not need to go to this extreme for what is, in fact, little more than a nuisance, but it is the right solution. E-bay will help recoup the loss. Although this is the best solution, keep in mind that even with a mixer that can swap channels you might still run into trouble -- what if FoH (for whatever reason) needs to rout you into channels 48-56 and your mixer only has 36 channels. In this (admittedly very unusual) case, you will not get your channels to line up.

Short of that, I do recommend reprogramming the mixer so that the input list is more in keeping with what FoH engineers are used to. Since Funk Syndicate are probably usually the only act on the bill, probably have plenty of prep time, and do a long set (I am guessing here) many of the usual "don't tie yourself down to one set of channels" argument won't apply, but I think they will continue to rub FoH engineers the wrong way if they continue with their current setup. I would definitely recommend, at the very least, reprogramming their board so that they could use the following input list (or something like it). Notice that I've left 2 channels open so they've got some room to grow. Maybe they should leave even more channels open depending on their mixer and snake configuration, but this way they are not expecting their venue to have more than 24 channels.

chan

Input

Notes

24

Frank Vox

23

Neil Vox

22

Kim Vox

Wireless

21

Kevin Vox

20

David Vox

19

Bob Vox

18

Karl Vox

Wireless

17

Open

16

Trumpet

Wireless

15

Sax

Wireless

13-14

EWI

Stereo

12

Guitar

10-11

Keys

Stereo DI

9

Open

8

Bass

DI

7

Overhead

Single

4-6

Toms

3

3

Hi Hat

2

Snare

1

Kick

(1-2)

(FoH)

Return

(3)

(Stage Talkback)

Return

Note that I've left returns on there, so that the venues know they are needed, but I've separated them from the rest of the mix. If they wanted to use them as inputs to to monitors I would recommend patching them in as auxes, or as much higher channels (not otherwise assigned), rather than assigned channels, because the FoH guy won't want to see his own outputs coming in as input channels.

Again, if Funk Syndicate is in a situation where FoH can't conform, then this won't solve their problems, but it should do in well over 90% of cases and it should keep most FoH engineers pretty happy.

A final solution is to do nothing and simply be extremely humble when facing FoH engineers. This will leave David facing some irritation, frequent, though slight delays in setup (since things are not where people are used to seeing them) and maybe occasional minor mistakes, but probably never anything worse than that.

So, while there's no perfect solution, there are plenty of workable options. David will have to be aware of the compromises -- irritating FoH mixers a bit vs reprogramming his mixer vs suffering with mismatched channels in his monitor and FoH mixes vs dropping a lot of cash on a new mixer. Even with a new mixer, there may be a rare case of channel mismatch, so nothing is perfect in this world.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Previously I've posted a lot about stageplots. You'd think I'd've said it all, but the truth is I've glossed over something important: the input list. I recently got an email from David Freeland of the Kansas City Funk Syndicate who had a question about input lists. I'll get to his question in part II, and, today, focus on the basic facts of input lists, which are really quite simple.

You might be tempted to think input lists are not that important. After all, if you're a huge touring act, you're probably touring with your own engineers who know your inputs, and if you're five-piece local act, house engineers might not even bother looking at your stage plots much less your input lists most nights. The truth is that unless you are a solo acoustic act it's very unlikely that any engineer is going to keep a complete input list in their heads and having it written down is the way to go. If you are ever asked for an input list, that means someone is trying to help you, so you should try and give them the best input list you can, so they can help you as best they can. Making good input list is ridiculously easy, and, as David's experience has taught him, having a good input list can save you some grief (actually, there wasn't much wrong with David's input list, and it still caused him some grief!). So let's just take a few seconds right now to get this right!

We've got a stage plot, why an input list?

Your stage plot clearly shows all your instruments, and should show how you want them connected to the sound system (via DI or mike -- you did do that, right?), so why do you also need an input list? There are a few reasons. The most common reason is simply a check list of all instruments so that the engineers can make sure they've got signal for everything. It can also be a place for additional notes or reminders. This is especially true if you've got a huge act and you simply can't put all the information you need on your stage plot. It's also a good chance to put the important stuff up top to help your engineers focus on what's import -- eg. lead vocals first! Since most mix engineers build their mix from the "bottom up" you might want to number your list backwards, like so, but we'll see in a moment why that probably doesn't matter:

chan

input

notes

7

Vocals

Wireless Mike (We can provide)

6

Acoustic Guitar

DI

5

Bass

DI

3-4

Drum Overhead

2

Snare

1

Kick

Notice how the input list is ordered in the same way that the mixer might be set up -- so that the mix can be built from the "bottom up", and the "money channel" lead vocals, are at the top, where they are least likely to be missed. Notice, also, that stereo sources get two channels -- you'll do the same thing with stereo keyboards and so on.

For most acts, that's all there is to it. Really. You are done. It's that easy and it will make your show go that much more smoothly.

But, you say, what if, say, another act goes on first and uses channels 5 and 6 for toms, but is otherwise the same? What if the house mixer has inputs 1-16 reserved for some other purpose, like a multitrack feed? What if the the mixer is some weird configuration or the mix engineer like to put the vocals on the low number channels? What does the house engineer do? The answer is, they ignore your channel numbers. Completely. And that's okay, because most of the time you're channel numbers don't matter, and unless your channel really do numbers matter for some reason, you can stop reading.

If you think your channel numbers really do matter, part II is coming up.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

File this under things that shouldn't shock me: $40-$90 for a bottle of water. Seriously. Bling H20 is one of the companies that will sell it to you. Their entire reason for being is to sell a product that you can get for free, but to make so expensive that it becomes a status symbol. Sure they put "crystals" on the bottle and say it's hand crafted, and the water is "pH balanced", but, at the end of the day the product is the price. I have to give Paris Hilton credit: she knew what to do with the water, she fed to her dog. (Why do I put crystals in quotes? Well, I've never understood why cut glass with a little lead in it should be called crystals, but I'll admit it counts as bling, since it's shiny.)

Monday, January 28, 2008

Paul the Wine Guy recently decided to remove his extremely popular “Understanding art for geeks” set from flickr. Here's his reasoning. You can probably still find some of his art using a google search.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Well XO Wave 1.0 is here! Download it now! I, meanwhile, am exhausted, and am going to bed! If you like, you can also read the full story, complete with coupons for discounts on tees! I will have to update the newsletter tomorrow, but since I'm writing this now: If you are already an owner of XO Wave Pro, you do not need to pay again: just download the new version and you're good to go.